Changing gmail settings for received email

osarusan

Hi all,

hope this is the right forum. If not, hopefully somebody can point me in the right direction. I couldn't find a more appropriate forum.

Basically, I want to change the settings on my gmail account for mail in my inbox.

With my hotmail account, if an email address is already in my contacts/address book, when an email comes from that address, i will see whatever name i put in my contact list. In other words, if I have a contact called John Smith and his email is 123456@email.com, whenever he sends me an email, it will come up in my inbox as John Smith.

Unfortunately, this isn't happening with my gmail account. Even if John smith is a contact, whenever he sends me an email, my inbox says 123456@email.com, and in many cases, it's not clear at all who the email is from without opening it.

I can't find settings which would allow me to change it (something like: 'display new emails by contact name' instead of 'display new emails by email address').

Does anybody have any suggestions?

advertsfox

Gmail does that automatically if it recognises the email address but it won't display it correctly if you have duplications. Check and merge any duplicates and try again.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/165334?hl=en

Jonny Blaze

If you go into gmail and click the red 'Gmail' text with the arrow next to it under the google logo at the top left of the screen and then select contacts from the dropdown box you can go in and edit your contacts to be whatever you like.

Just click on the empty name value for your friend and type one in and google will autosave it.

osarusan

Jonny Blaze wrote: »

If you go into gmail and click the red 'Gmail' text with the arrow next to it under the google logo at the top left of the screen and then select contacts from the dropdown box you can go in and edit your contacts to be whatever you like.

Just click on the empty name value for your friend and type one in and google will autosave it.

I've already done that. I've saved a contact with their name filled in, but it still doesn't appear that way in my inbox.

advertsfox

osarusan wrote: »

I've already done that. I've saved a contact with their name filled in, but it still doesn't appear that way in my inbox.

You need to check and merge duplicates as in my post above. If the contact is saved twice, Gmail won't pick between the two.

osarusan

advertsfox wrote: »

You need to check and merge duplicates as in my post above. If the contact is saved twice, Gmail won't pick between the two.

No duplicates found
Yay! No duplicates.

No duplicates in my contacts.

advertsfox

osarusan wrote: »

No duplicates in my contacts.

Search for the email address in question in Contacts, how many show up?

Also, what happen's when you open the email from your friend and then try to add them to contacts?

osarusan

advertsfox wrote: »

Search for the email address in question in Contacts, how many show up?

how do I do this?

advertsfox wrote: »

Also, what happen's when you open the email from your friend and then try to add them to contacts?

I've already added them as a contact. If I hover the cursor over the email address displayed in the inbox, I can see their profile, with the name I've added there correctly.

however, I've never seen the menu you've just posted a photo of. If I receive an email from an account that isn't already a contact, by hovering over that address in the inbox, a box pops up in which I can 'add to contacts'. That's how I've done it so far.

osarusan

Further on my last post - i just took an email address and typed it into that search bar at the top of the contacts page. Just one contact showed. Is that what you meant?

Also, I found that menu - a dropdown menu at the top right of the page when you open an email. For the accounts I'm having a problem with, the 'add to contact' isn't offered as an option, as they already are contacts.